Walking Through Ephesians
“I Love Your Word!”
Categories: Seeing God Through the PsalmsI Love Your Word!
On Tuesdays we are going to be looking at one of the themes from the longest Psalm, Psalm 119. This psalm tends to scare readers off because of its length and its depth, but do not be discouraged. Follow along and we will discover some of its secrets together!
The first theme is love of Law. Psalm 119 is basically a love poem to the law (vv. 47, 48, 97, 113, 119, 127, 159, 163, 167 to name a few). This theme might sound strange at first, but the psalmist finds the law so outrageously loveable because it belongs to God. Since the law is distinctly God’s law, and comes right from his mouth, it is better than anything else, including heaps of treasure (v. 72, 127) and delicious honey (v. 103).
The notion of “law,” however, goes much further than just the Ten Commandments. “The law” is an expansive idea for the writer of Psalm 119. It is nearly impossible to read even a single verse of this psalm without bumping into it. That’s because the idea of “the law” is described by lots of different words in Psalm 119, including “commandments,” “precepts,” “ways,” “testimonies,” “ordinances,” “judgments,” “statutes,” and—most popular of them all—“words.” Only seven verses in this psalm do not mention this “law” idea in some way.
The psalmist is writing about his incredible love for anything God says. Whether actual commandments, or blessings, or prophecies, or decisions, or stories—whatever God says to his people, it’s utterly loveable. Every scrap of what God reveals in speech is priceless, including his rules. And words beget words, as God’s communication throws the psalmist into extended poetic rhapsody. As it should for us! These are the Words of the creator of all existence and He recorded this for you and I to read so that we may be able to come to an understanding of who He is and what He expects for His people.
